The invention relates to methods and equipment for controlling Quality of Service (QoS) in mobile communications systems having a packet data transmission capability. More specifically, the invention relates to sending data packets on the basis of QoS mapping information and transporting QoS mapping information between various nodes in such a mobile communications system.
For the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) phase 2 and UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) systems a more comprehensive QoS support is required. For this purpose, QoS-related information must be maintained at the network boundary elements, e.g., at a Mobile Station (MS) and a GGSN (Gateway GPRS Support Node).
Currently it is not possible to transform information needed to perform QoS mapping and translation functions between the external network QoS mechanisms and mobile network specific QoS mechanisms. This means that only very static QoS translation can be carried out by the mobile network boundary nodes. For providing different QoS values for different applications (such as real-time or non-real-time multimedia, file transmission, background e-mail transfer etc.) means for maintaining consistent information at the mobile station and the GGSN nodes are needed.
No solutions for this problem are known for GPRS/UMTS networks. For the Internet, there are mechanisms available that can be used to transport QoS or flow specific information. However, this information is interpreted by every node along the end-to-end transmission path and not only by the endpoints (the MS and the GGSN).